Life history tactics of annual organisms: The joint effects of dispersal and delayed germination (Q1820725)

We present a model to study the effects of delayed germination and dispersal on population behavior of annual organisms. The emphasis is on the density-independent situation. We study the dependence of optimal combinations of dispersal and germination on the environmental conditions if dispersal and germination rates are optimized simultaneously. Delayed germination is favored if population growth is low and fluctuations of the reproductive success in the subpopulations are positively correlated. Dispersal is favored if population growth is high and subpopulations fluctuate uncorrelated. If optimization is not done simultaneously but if dispersal or germination is kept fixed at a certain level, the optimal dispersal rate decreases with decreasing germination and the optimal germination rate increases with increasing dispersal. The results of the density- independent model are compared with the results of computer simulation for the density-dependent situation.